Parents' Experiences of Toothbrushing with Children: A Qualitative Study.

Globally, dental caries is one of the most prevalent diseases and is more common in children living in deprived areas. Dental caries is preventable, and guidance in the United Kingdom recommends parental supervised brushing (PSB): a collection of behaviors-including twice-daily toothbrushing with fluoridated toothpaste-that should begin upon eruption of the first tooth (approximately 6 to 12 mo of age) and for which children need to be helped or supervised by an adult until at least 7 y of age. The aim of this study was to explore parents' experiences of toothbrushing with their young children and to establish barriers and facilitators to PSB at individual, interpersonal, and environmental levels according to the theoretical domains framework. Qualitative semistructured interviews guided by the framework were conducted with 27 parents of young children (<7 y) in 2 deprived areas of the United Kingdom. Framework analysis was used. Parents were not aware of national guidance concerning their active involvement in toothbrushing; however, they did have detailed knowledge of toothbrushing practices for children, and their intentions were to brush their children's teeth themselves twice every day as part of a family routine. Nonetheless, parents' difficulties experienced in managing their children's challenging behavior and the environmental context of their stressful lives meant that many parents adopted a role of simply reminding their children to brush or watching them brush. As such, the main barriers to PSB among parents living in deprived areas were skills in managing their children's behavior and environmental influences on family life. The results of our study have clear implications for the development of appropriate interventions to address the modifiable barriers to improve parental adoption of PSB. Knowledge Transfer Statement: The results of this study will be used to develop a behavior change intervention to encourage parental supervised brushing. The intervention-which is likely to be delivered through health practitioners rather than dental teams-will be developed to reduce dental caries among young children and will require evaluation in terms of its clinical and cost effectiveness.

Physiological responses to repeated bouts of high-intensity ultraendurance cycling--a field study case report.

The present study aimed to 1) examine the relationship between laboratory-based measures and high-intensity ultraendurance (HIU) performance during an intermittent 24-h relay ultraendurance mountain bike race (approximately 20 min cycling, approximately 60 min recovery), and 2) examine physiological and performance based changes throughout the HIU event. Prior to the HIU event, four highly-trained male cyclists (age = 24.0 +/- 2.1 yr; mass = 75.0 +/- 2.7 kg; VO2peak = 70 +/- 3 ml x kg(-1) x min(-1)) performed 1) a progressive exercise test to determine peak volume of oxygen uptake (VO2peak), peak power output (PPO), and ventilatory threshold (T(vent)), 2) time-to-fatigue tests at 100% (TF100) and 150% of PPO (TF150), and 3) a laboratory simulated 40-km time trial (TT40). Blood lactate (Lac(-)), haematocrit and haemoglobin were measured at 6-h intervals throughout the HIU event, while heart rate (HR) was recorded continuously. Intermittent HIU performance, performance HR, recovery HR, and Lac(-) declined (P < 0.05), while plasma volume expanded (P < 0.05) during the HIU event. TF100 was related to the decline in lap time (r = -0.96; P < 0.05), and a trend (P = 0.081) was found between TF150 and average intermittent HIU speed (r = 0.92). However, other measures (VO2peak, PPO, T(vent), and TT40) were not related to HIU performance. Measures of high-intensity endurance performance (TF100, TF150) were better predictors of intermittent HIU performance than traditional laboratory-based measures of aerobic capacity.

The use of alcohol home delivery services by male problem drinkers: a preliminary report.

Alcohol home delivery services (AHDS) provide convenient and confidential access to alcohol, yet little is known about their use. The purpose of this report is to present preliminary data describing the use of AHDS by problem drinkers. We surveyed 174 males regarding social and demographic characteristics, alcohol use history, and use of AHDS. Use of AHDS was most common among problem drinkers. When statistically controlling for the effects of demographic and social characteristics, regular drinkers without a history of alcohol problems were significantly less likely to have had alcohol delivered than problem drinkers, p = .0036. Contrary to expectation, medically ill alcoholics with advanced and disabling medical complications of heavy drinking were not more likely than other problem drinkers to have alcohol delivered. Living in an urban area and not having a vehicle available were associated with the use of AHDS. The public health and safety considerations of alcohol availability via home delivery are discussed.

enabled, a dosage-sensitive suppressor of mutations in the Drosophila Abl tyrosine kinase, encodes an Abl substrate with SH3 domain-binding properties.

Genetic screens for dominant second-site mutations that suppress the lethality of Abl mutations in Drosophila identified alleles of only one gene, enabled (ena). We report that the ena protein contains proline-rich motifs and binds to Abl and Src SH3 domains, ena is also a substrate for the Abl kinase; tyrosine phosphorylation of ena is increased when it is coexpressed in cells with human or Drosophila Abl and endogenous ena tyrosine phosphorylation is reduced in Abl mutant animals. Like Abl, ena is expressed at highest levels in the axons of the embryonic nervous system and ena mutant embryos have defects in axonal architecture. We conclude that a critical function of Drosophila Abl is to phosphorylate and negatively regulate ena protein during neural development.

Regulation of human tissue factor expression by mRNA turnover.

Tissue factor serves as the cellular receptor for circulating blood coagulation factor VII and is the principal physiological initiator of blood coagulation. Tissue factor is not normally expressed in cells that contact blood, such as endothelial cells and monocytes, but can be induced in these cells by tumor necrosis factor or tumor-promoting phorbol esters. Following induction, the human tissue factor mRNA is degraded with a half-life of approximately 0.75-1.5 h. The cellular mechanisms responsible for this rapid mRNA turnover were investigated with chimeric tissue factor.beta-globin constructs expressed in stably transfected mouse NIH/3T3 cells. These constructs were expressed with the transiently inducible c-fos promoter which eliminated the need to use transcriptional inhibitors to determine mRNA half-lives. Sequences capable of conferring rapid turnover to the normally stable beta-globin transcript were localized to the last 600 nucleotides of the tissue factor mRNA. The 3' end of this fragment is similar to previously described AU-rich mRNA destabilizing elements. Activity of the tissue factor element was dependent on its specific sequence and not simply a high AU nucleotide content. The degradation of unstable chimeric tissue factor.beta-globin mRNAs was prevented by inhibition of transcription with actinomycin D. Chimeric tissue factor.beta-globin mRNAs were superinduced by the protein synthesis inhibitor cycloheximide, and this superinduction may be due in part to stabilization of the mRNA.

Structure of the gene for human plasminogen activator inhibitor-2. The nearest mammalian homologue of chicken ovalbumin.

Plasminogen activator inhibitor-2 (PAI-2) can regulate the formation of plasmin by inhibiting urokinase and tissue plasminogen activator. PAI-2 is induced in monocytes and endothelium by inflammatory mediators, and it is made in the placenta during pregnancy. PAI-2 is a member of the serine protease inhibitor gene family, and it is particularly similar to chicken ovalbumin. Like ovalbumin, PAI-2 is secreted without cleavage of a signal peptide. To determine the structure of the PAI-2 gene, two bacteriophage lambda human genomic DNA libraries were screened with PAI-2 cDNA probes. Characterization of three positive clones shows that the human PAI-2 gene spans 16.5 kilobases and has eight exons. The 5'-untranslated sequence of the PAI-2 mRNA is 77 base pairs in length as suggested by primer extension and S1 nuclease mapping. The eukaryotic consensus sequence TATAAAA is found 22 base pairs 5' of the proposed cap site. The PAI-2 gene is on chromosome 18q21-23 as determined by hybridization to flow-sorted chromosomes and by in situ hybridization. There appear to be two common PAI-2 alleles that differ by six nucleotides in exons 1, 4, and 8. The structure of the PAI-2 gene is quite different from that of PAI-1 although these two inhibitors have common target protease specificity. In contrast, the structure of the PAI-2 gene is very similar to that of the chicken ovalbumin gene. When protein sequences are aligned to obtain maximal identity, six of the seven intron positions in the PAI-2 gene are identical to those in the chicken ovalbumin gene. We conclude that PAI-2 is the closest mammalian homologue of avian ovalbumin.